EUMUNDI CRAFT MARKET

Saturday August 12, 2012. Another late wake up and lazy breakfast – still covering events of the past decades – what phenomenal memories some people have, especially the ladies!

Then packing as we were off to the Dunns for a couple of nights and then the two of us headed off in Wayne’s loan four wheel drive for the market at Eumundi, about 50 km from Noosa. The market was highly regarded by all and sundry – possibly the best market in the world, or at least Australia, or maybe Queensland.  I feel qualified to make some judgements about markets of this nature – mainly ‘craft markets’ because I have wandered through dozens in many parts of the world. Rab is fascinated by them, doing what Matt calls ‘mastodon shopping’. Strolling through the maze of stalls, stopping here and there, picking up an item for closer examination, putting it back and wandering on. Very rarely buying anything because, well…..there is very rarely anything we’d want to buy – apart from food and drink, where local items can be well worth the time spent standing by with my darling mastodon. One big exception was the markets in Italy which had shoe, handbags and leatherwork which converted her to an acquisitive hunter, more lupine perhaps or even vulpine than elephantine.

Eumundi Market met my expectations without too much effort. There really was nothing that we wanted, needed or liked. The only item we spotted that was for sale was an ingenious wooden device for holding ceramic or plastic pots with a rim.  There were large signs up all over the stall forbidding photographs and emphasising that these items were subject to copyright and patent and other intellectual rights. I had my doubts about these claims – after all it wouldn’t be too hard to cut a similar pattern with a jig saw.

But, as is also often the case, there were some very strange sights for those of us who sit and watch the passing throng while our partner sifts through the clothing shop selling inappropriate items. So I rested at one stage with a tasty  German sausage und sauerkraut on a good rye roll sipping an excellent homemade ginger beer which had the kick that commercial product lack, in case their customers complain.  There is a good deal of ginger grown in Queensland and there are many ingenious uses  that have been developed for the root. As I sat there in the chilly sun – the wind was still blowing and keeping everything cool – I tried to establish if there was any local style or fashion in clothing. It seemed that many of the younger females were wearing bright and flimsy cotton tops with pussy pelmet short skirts teamed with black tights and clumpy shoes. I guess that somewhere there is a pop singer dressed like this – Lady Gaga maybe – but I also have to say it is not the most elegant look I have ever seen, especially if the wearer is on the stout  side, as so many country folk were.  There were some pretty large men too, although their outfit tended to be limited to jeans and a singlet with a dirty cap on their mop of hair some still in untidy mullet style. Quite a lot of beards around too.

Sated with our exciting tour of the market – who does buy those garish paintings in primary colours? Or anything else for that matter. I can’t say that I saw any actual purchases taking place, apart from food and drink. It seems an awful lot of effort to schlep the goods, counters, tents etc out every week and then pack them up and take them home.

Eumindi looked like a nice little village, but we didn’t spend any time wandering around as it was full of people and we’d seen enough in the market. So we headed for the Dunns, using our faithful Tom Tom GPS because they lived about 25 km the other side of Noosa and we had to be careful about what road we took. We had firm instructions NOT to take the Cootharaba Road, but the Cootharaba Downs Road (the latter about 15 km away from the former). And we battled to pronounce Cootharaba bearing in mind the Coo being equal to Ka! On the way we popped in to  Cooroy/Karoi because the sun had come out brightly and I wanted to get a pair of sunglasses at  Gelignite Jack’s Emporium.

Gelegnite Jack's across the road

I usually wear lensed glasses for distance work which are photosensitive, but I have been finding for the last few months that I can see better without my glasses than when I wear them – at least for distance work. I went for an eye test the morning I broke my arm and the lass at the optician said there seemed to be an improvement in my vision – and it is so. We found a suitable pair of glasses for all of $6.95 picked up a couple of beers and soft drinks and headed for  Kathabarara aka Cootharaba. The pavement (or sidewalk) in Cooroy has some interesting panels inset, which we saw in other small towns.

GPS systems tend to have a bit of a warped sense of humour at times and at first it seemed, according to the map in my iPad that Tom was leading us a merry dance, especially when we found that we had to cross the Bruce Highway – a National Road  with two lanes of high speed traffic each way and a bend no too far up the hill. Thank goodness there wasn’t much traffic around, it being Saturday afternoon, otherwise the thought of an uncontrolled crossing with traffic moving at 100 kph would have been more daunting. Wayne confirmed later that there had been a number of very bad accidents there – hardly surprising – and certainly not Tom’s fault.

The area where the Dunn’s live is genuine countryside. The roads in to the area are lined with enormous gums and there are some small villages on the way. For some reason Google has decided that their position should be delineated by their northern boundary, which means you overshoot the entrance to the property by about 195meters. But we soon realised our mistake and were driving up the sweeping driveway of Kaizen Bed & Breakfast and Health Retreat, Kamo Park – the Dunns having decided to use part of their very large house and property for this purpose.

The house is striking – think Southfork in Queensland. Set in 79 acres, Wayne and Dal have built an enormous house with a fine finish and an enormous attention to detail. Shedding our shoes at the door because of the fine polished floors (and wishing we’d brought our warm slippers as the temperature dropped) we were welcomed with open arms and some very nice snacks. The main entertainment area is enormous – over 100 foot long and more than 50 foot wide. It Is broken into zones but the use of furniture and furnishings and glass walls on each side looking out on the one side on very large swimming pool with the grazing lands beyond and a neatly trimmed lawn on the other with interesting bushes and shrubs. Son Adrian is a landscape gardener by trade. Wayne and Dal sleep at one end of the house, beyond the kitchen and guest suite – at the other end of the house is a large wing containing four or five bedrooms, a bar and TV room and a room with a full sized snooker table. Their children and grandchildren drift in and out, staying for a night here or there – or maybe longer. All very casual and loving.

Exterior and Interior views of Kamo Park

 Dal had cooked up a very attractive meal of Moroccan Chicken – all nuts and prunes and exotic spices – served on cous cous. We talked until late in the night and so to bed after an interesting day in a rather cold room – difficult to warm that house.

COOROY AND KENILWORTH

Friday August 11, 2012. A late lie in – no dogs with their expectations of an early morning walk and a run around the oval – while Jesse and Angela went off for their morning swim in the heated pool.  Followed by a delicious breakfast of home made bread and home made muesli with home made yoghurt – and some lovely fresh fruit. Good start to the day.

Rab and Jesse chatting, while Ang's kookaburra watches the frog in the pond

We headed out mid-morning for a day in the country with the Loxtons. They wanted to show us some of the small country towns and Jesse in particular wanted us to share what he claimed to be the best sandwiches in the world. He had adopted many of the Queensland traits after living in that State for so many years. First stop, after meandering through some very pretty countryside was Cooroy. Now looking at the name like that you might be tempted to pronounce it Coo (as in  dove’s call)- Roy (as in the man’s name) but, like so many Australian place names it is better not to take an uneducated stab. The town is pronounced more like the Zimbabwean town Karoi, with the emphasis on the second syllable.  The initial plan was to view the local museum, but it was closed for some undetermined purpose, so we just had a look around the shops, including Gelignite Jack’s, advertising the lowest prices anywhere. I love those $2 shops with their amazing wares, mainly from China these days. We rarely buy anything, but….then again there have been some very useful purchases from time to time – and so cheap!

On we went to Kenilworth for lunch – an appropriately named town since we had all lived in a suburb of Cape Town of that name when we were neighbours all those years ago. Jesse’s restaurant was open and we were soon sharing the enormous corned beef sandwiches that were the speciality of the house. The meat came from the butcher across the road, the bread was baked on site and the meal was indeed delicious. It was as well that we had been warned about the American sized serving though – we would have battled to eat an entire sandwich each.

We had a stroll through the town after lunch to help with the  digestion. There was a wonderful play park for children there with all manner of swings and the like, including a zip-line – what we used to call a foefie slide – aka a flying  fox. The kids were loving it and I worded how long it would be before the joy-killers would ban the equipment in the name of Health and Safety. So many schools now are banning running games, touching games, ball games, even handstands and cartwheels, unless under properly supervised conditions.  I know we’re all getting old, and I sometimes almost have to agree with brother Steve when he says “The World’s gone mad.”

We landed up at the cheese factory at the bottom of town. My life, if only we had been able to transport some of the marvellous goods on offer back home. Apart from glorious standard cheeses, both hard and soft – and goats as well as cow, there were some exotics, the likes of which I had never seen before. My favourite of those was the chilli/curry flavoured cheddar. I was very tempted to take a bit of that for our roadside meals as we travelled. Rab didn’t share my enthusiasm.

 We headed back home and all opted for a Nana Nap as we Aussies call the welcome afternoon snooze that we used to mock our grandparents about.

Angela, Rab, Jesse, Wayne, Dalma

Wayne and Dalma Dunn came over in the evening. Wayne was good enough to lend us one of his fleet of vehicles, thus saving us two days hire. We had a drink and then all went into town for a meal at the Riverside Café. Excellent meal – Rab and I had belly pork, which was delicious, but our guests, the locals, felt it was a bit pricey. We reckoned it was about equal to the cost of a similar meal in Melbourne – $250 for the six of us main course plus drinks and wine seemed to be about right. – such is city life.

NOOSA

 Thursday August 10 2010. It was a lovely sunny day a we drove up from Maroochydore airport to Noosa where Jess and Angela live. But, like a summer’s day in Sweden, it was quite cold in the shade or in the wind. A light jacket was still required.

The drive up the coast – about 45 minutes – was interesting. There were some lovely vistas and snatches of views of beaches, but the main item of interest  was the development all along the coast and especially as we neared Noosa. We’d all read about how the wealthy city folk from Mexico (Queenslanders tend to contemptuously refer to anyone from South of their Border as Mexicans) had poured into Noosa, each outspending the other in an astonishing show of affluence. There were enormous holiday homes everywhere, but especially on the waterways or any rise that gave a better view.

Jesse and Angela live in an gated community - Noosa Springs, a golfing estate, and a grand one at that. Driving in past the security guard – surely not REALLY necessary in this essentially country town?? – past the manicured hedges, the tennis courts, the gym and swimming pools – one warm water; one cold water with glimpses of the golf course through the trees, it was difficult to estimate the worth of residents and the complex. Jesse was pointing out the really expensive properties that had changed hands for three or four million dollars at the height of the spending frenzy (prices off by the odd million now that times were hard). But it wasn’t only the buildings themselves that I was thinking about but the cars – Mercedes, BMW, Porsches and hulking great four wheel drive vehicles were the order of the day -  and simple things like the golf carts. There were almost 100 of them at the club – that’s a cool million dollars for starters. Assuredly these villas would also contain jewellery, works of art, good furniture and all the trappings of the wealthy. Maybe the security guards were necessary after all?

Angela gave us a very warm welcome – and some deliciously warm homemade bread for lunch with delicious ham and cheese – just what we wanted. It was great sitting on their veranda chatting about the old days, although it was a bit nippy in the shade.

We unpacked in our very comfortable guest room and were amused to spot an African version of the Musicians of Bremen. In place of the donkey, dog, cat and rooster, Angela had found one that featured a buffalo, zebra, leopard and guinea fowl. That would have been an interesting musical group.

We went  for a spin in the afternoon, parking in Hastings Street where, in season all the beautiful elite (or at least the ones who still have their money) meet and greet and eat in the plethora of cafes and restaurants when they are not shopping in the trendy boutiques, some of which, alas! seemed to be battling somewhat. But it was mid-winter and no doubt the proprietors were hoping for a good summer.

We strolled around town down to the beach – a lovely bay of white sand with small waves breaking, but very few people in the water. Back to the car to drive out to the Spit to get another view of the bay. There was a deal of activity as water craft sped in and out of the Heads while others anchored with a lazy line in the water. It was possible to cross the river and drive up the beach for the best part of 100 km to the ferry to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, where light aircraft land on the beach and large four wheel drives hurtled around. Jesse said it was a great experience but not one we had time for. We were surprised to see so many bush turkey pecking away on the grassy areas or where the bush was thin, with their distinctive yellow wattles. Talking of which, the wattle trees were out in bloom everywhere with their bright  golden flowers lightening up the bush.

Driving back to the opposite arm of the bay, we were in the National Park which has preserved hundreds of acres of bush from the developers. Jesse and Angela do a fair bit cycling and walking in the area and say there are stunning views. There were  dozens of people walking about, and one man providing us with some gently strummed music as he sat under a gum tree watching the sun set. Jesse said that there were some koalas in the area which were often spotted sleeping in the trees, but they weren’t visible for us – just the omnipresent bush turkeys and some birds belting it out in the trees.

It was a lovely welcome to Noosa and Angela had prepared a delicious sea food curry which we ate with a couple of beers while catching up with years of news and views.

And so to bed to sleep soundly in a very comfortable bed .

COUPLE OF WEEKS AWAY

We had settled in for a long period of no travel. Rab had decreed it – “No more travel for at least a year. The boys deserve the time at home.”

But man (or woman) proposes and Fate disposes. Peter Skirving, my man in Queensland back in the day when we were in the same corporation – can it REALLY be twenty years plus since those perfidious Poms sold us off ? – to the Swiss of all people! My very life! Anyway Peter called to say that one of our colleagues from that time had fallen off the perch. I didn’t know the man well, but his passing was another little mile peg along the journey of my life. And as ever, it was enough to get Rab thinking about seeing folk we hadn’t seen for some time. Since many of them are clustered in the southern part of Queensland and northern New South Wales, that provided the focus for a trip – a drive down the coast. We couldn’t remember just when we had last been up that way. It was certainly before we came back to Australia seven years ago – the best guess we came up with was about twelve years.

The top end of the drive would be Noosa – 1,830 km from Melbourne – say a comfortable four day drive up the Newell Highway. That proposal was quashed on the basis that it was too far for me to drive. My feeble argument that it wasn’t, that I enjoyed driving, that I wanted to see the inland parts we hadn’t seen before were brushed aside as immaterial. No, we would fly to Noosa, pick up a hire car and drive down to Warner’s Bay, just outside Newcastle, flying home from Newcastle, a little under 1,000 km and, so my good lady thought, manageable by an old crock like me.

Boys were booked in to their luxury quarters, we booked on Virgin for the first time and managed to get a SUV for hire. We didn’t think we’d need a car that big or powerful but there wasn’t much in the cost between that and a comfortable saloon and we thought we’d get a better view.

Thursday August 10. It was a cold and frosty morning when we got going. Strange, as ever when the boys are away, not to have two happy hounds to greet us. Our limo arrived dead on time at 07h30 as ordered. We have been using a limo service for years now because of the unreliability of taxis out here in the suburbs. If they don’t turn up on time and you call the controller you’ll be told that another will be along “shortly”. Press for a definition of that term and you’re told 20 – 30 minutes. Tough if they don’t turn up then. Nick is the usual owner/driver, but he had sent Harry who we had not met before. A friendly bloke who never stopped talking, much of it about how good he was as a taxi driver back in the day and what excellent service he provided now – although times were hard and business was scarce.

We got to the airport on time as traffic was light and then had to face the new check-in procedures. Although we have travelled a good deal, most of our flights in Australia have been from the International terminals where the procedures are very different from those in the Domestic ones. We learned a bit in March checkin in to Qantas for the flight to Sydney, but, naturally Virgin’s check-in system was different. We managed with the help of a little passing Virgin.

The flight left on time and was comfortable, although the seats are VERY small and I had my knees touching the seat in front. Also very difficult to pick up anything on the floor as there wasn’t enough space between the rows to get my body down far enough. A first for us was not being offered refreshments. With the Pay As You Go approach these day on the discounted flights, everything is extra. Not that it bothered us in the least – we managed to survive the two hour plus flight without eating.

Our pal Jesse was there to meet us at airport. He looked better than when we last saw him, we thought, but basically, like so many of our friends, he seemed not to have aged. I always think this is a prime example of how we can fool ourselves and demonstrates the difference between perception and reality.

Jesse was our doctor more than forty years ago when we were all in Cape Town – and in fact lived next door to each other. Ever solicitous, he offered to remove basal cell carcinoma from my cheek as we drove out of the airport parking lot. I declined his kind offer.